Some writers are fortunate enough to never have to overcome writer's block, or so I'm told. Every writer I know personally has had to deal with it at one time or another to varying degrees of severity. I wrestle with it virtually every book I write. In fact, I still have unfinished manuscripts in folders on my computer just waiting for me to get back to them and add meat to their underdeveloped bones. I will.

And when I do, I will most likely read what I've written, open my graphics software, and start designing a cover for the book that it will one day be. I do it for one reason: envisioning a cover and constructing the various visual and design elements that go into it totally immerses me in the story. My mind takes all those thoughts I've had about the story and gives them order. I see the book in a single image. While I tinker with every little detail of the cover, I am forced to justify why they belong and explain to myself what they represent. More times than not, this technique will unblock me. The difficulties I had with the story become clearer as the cover takes shape.

The good news is if you want to try this method of beating writer's block, you don't have to know anything about imaging and graphic design software. You can cut pictures and words out of magazines to build a mock-up of a cover on a piece of cardboard and achieve the same results.

Sometimes beating writer's block simply takes seeing the story from a different vantage point. Creating a cover design can give you a fresh new perspective that may have eluded you in the past. Good luck and happy designing.

-Richard

Richard Ridley is an award-winning author and paid CreateSpace contributor.

Forbes released its annual list of highest paid authors, and I was devastated to learn that I am not on the list. Seriously, the earning figures of these authors are, in the words of Chazz Michael Michaels, mind bottling. For me, it is both an inspiring and depressing article to read. Who knew a thing like that was possible? In the interest of all things karma, I wish them well with their big piles of money.

Patterson is a prime example. In the period from May 2010 through April 2011, he was again the world's top-earning author, with total income of $84 million. (Our income estimates are based on sales figures supplied by Nielsen Bookscan, year-end sales totals submitted by publishing houses to Publishers Weekly, and input from numerous agents, managers and editors.) That's a major increase from the $70 million he booked the year before. The jump comes courtesy of a 17-book, $150 million deal Patterson signed with his publisher, Hachette Book Group, in 2009. The peerlessly prolific Patterson, who works with a team of co-authors to boost his output, published 10 of those books during this period.

Short films aren't just great tools for honing your filmmaking skills. They can be showcase pieces that land you feature film works. It's not an everyday occurrence, but from time-to-time you do stumble across a story that entails a novice filmmaker catching the eye of a studio with a top-shelf short film. Troy Nixey happens to be one of those rare filmmakers.

Big breaks rarely happen quite this way. Aspiring filmmaker Troy Nixey submitted his short film "Latchkey's Lament" to Guillermo del Toro, looking for some guidance; what he got was the opportunity to direct his first feature, "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark." An update of the 1973 TV movie, the R-ratedfilm, co-written by Del Toro and Matthew Robbins, traces what happens when a precocious young girl (Bailee Madison) is sent to live with her father (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend (Katie Holmes) and begins to hear strange voices issuing from the basement of the historic home the couple is restoring.

The chance to design an album or CD cover used to be a dream gig for graphic artists and designers. It was an opportunity to not only showcase your skills as an artist, but to do so in a grand and bold way. After all, record companies are known for shaking things up and shocking people. The rise in music downloads from the internet has the music industry looking to drive digital sales, and as a result, graphic artists are faced with a challenge of designing "covers" for small screens.

Art directors and designers say they've never been given blunt directives to be more elementary. Yet they admit the transition to easily grasped images is an inevitable part of the move from 12-inch discs to MP3s. "The album cover has become just a pictographic button, some little thing on a Web site that you can click on to listen to or purchase some music," said Frank Olinsky, a designer who has worked on covers for Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth.

I was going through some old notes from a seminar I attended a few years ago hosted by an acquisitions editor from one of the major publishers. She covered the entire publishing process from her point of view. She had the unenviable job of finding manuscripts that were destined to be bestsellers. In short, her job is more difficult than trying to hit a 98 mile-per-hour fastball with your eyes closed.

She told one story of acquiring a manuscript by an author who had been published before. She loved the manuscript. Her boss loved it. Everyone who read it loved it. They were all sure it was destined to be a huge success. The editorial staff massaged the manuscript to make it perfect. The marketing team worked on a fail-proof launch. Everyone decided that the manuscript deserved a large initial print run. A fairly large marketing budget was put into place. Everything was going smoothly until the design team started to work on the cover. They went through cover after cover after cover, but they couldn't find anything that worked. The author gave suggestions, the CEO of the company even put in his two cents, but they couldn't decide on a design. They vacillated until a decision had to be made in order to meet the publication deadline. They went with the least objectionable. Pre-release industry reviews had been glowing. They were sure they could overcome a mediocre cover design.

The book debuted and quickly flopped. Those who read it loved it, but nobody was buying the book because of the cover. In the meantime, they created a cover for the international release that everybody loved, and as a result the book did phenomenally well overseas. Here's the thing: the change to the cover wasn't a major change. They tweaked the image, but the biggest change was going from a muted yellow background color to a more passionate red. It fit the genre and did the trick.

The lesson? People do judge a book by its cover. The cover isn't just an artistic decision. It is a marketing decision. Don't settle for something that you're not completely happy with. Don't sell yourself short. If you have the budget for it, work with a professional designer to come up with something that will capture people's attention.

-Richard

Richard Ridley is an award-winning author and paid CreateSpace contributor.